A recent UPI story features “Running the Sahara.” Those who follow the ONE Blog already know that “Running the Sahara” is a documentary about three incredible ulta-marathoners who are running 4,000 miles across the entire length of the scorching hot Sahara Desert to raise awareness for clean water in Africa.
From the UPI story:
“A U.N. Development Program spokeswoman said Monday they have completed some 2,360 miles of their 4,000-mile-long extreme quest that is taking them from Senegal on the Atlantic Ocean to Cairo…
“For the runners, water is a daily necessity,” Mihova said. “For the people of the Sahara, and throughout the developing world, it is a lifelong concern.”
This is made clear in the UNDP 2006 Human Development Report — Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis — which offers fresh new data on how many poor people go without water and sanitation, the inequality of access within and between nations, and how clean water affects child survival rates.”
Read the full article here.
Wednesday night, around 9 pm, I went to my local print shop in Chicago to fax a stack of letters to Congress. The transmission report for each fax reprinted the first page of each letter, each one with a congressman’s name written right across the top. When I paid, the cashier looked at the reports, and then back at me, like I was some kind of uni-bomber nut. I guess they don’t get many people in the shop who try to convince Congress to stop extreme poverty and disease.
I had just been at Willow Creek Community Church (in the suburbs of Chicago) with an incredible group of people from the Global Connections Advocacy Team. The team’s mission is to teach others about extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS and motivate them to contact their elected officials on the issues. They had asked me to speak about the federal budget – and the timing for the event couldn’t have been more perfect: at the exact same time Congressmen Lee and Shays and Senators Brownback and Durbin were collecting signatures for their “Dear Colleague” letters to ensure that a continuing resolution did not affect the $1b proposed increase in spending on extreme poverty programs in 2007. You can read more about the CR here.
After a detailed discussion on the issues, everyone’s motivations for joining the group, as well as why the U.S. budget process matters to ONE volunteers, the group wrote letters about the global poverty and the 2007 CR to their congressmen. Knowing the number of representatives who had signed onto the letters after ONE volunteers began writing their congressmen two days earlier was an incredibly motivating factor for the group.
I hurried to the print shop, enduring curious stares from the cashier, but I knew it would be worth it. By the “Dear Colleague” letters sign-on deadlines last week, nearly half the Senate and over a fifth of the House had signed. I cannot wait to work with the Willow Creek group again, although next time, I’ll fax from the library.
Butterthief, a post-indie rock group from New York City, shows their support for the fight against extreme poverty by sharing their song, “Central Park”, with ONE members today.
Listen to “Central Park”, and all the ONE Music, on the ONE Podcast Page.
A note from Butterthief:
“The more you give, the more strength will be given to you.”
-His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Dear ONE Campaign Family,
We give you this song to help put ONE more smile on the face of a hungry child, to help prevent ONE more person from getting a disease, and to push us ONE step forward in becoming ONE global family.
We are honored to have the ability to contribute in some small way to help uplift Africa through our music. May this song be a lullaby that helps anyone who hears it to stop, smell the roses and be grateful for being on this planet right now. Time is always slipping through our fingers like the sands of the hourglass. As we listen to Central Park, let’s take a moment to reflect on the abundance we have so we can share that fullness with those in need.
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti,
Manish Tandon, Butterthief”
www.butterthief.com
It’s incredibly tough to be a small farmer these days. From Mali to Mississippi, family farms are struggling just to stay afloat. Meanwhile, huge industrial-sized farms in the US gobble up small farms, and poor farmers across the globe struggle to survive on just a dollar a day.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. This year, Congress will debate a new Farm Bill, which for five years will set policies that could either help small farmers at home and abroad – or keep them struggling.
Join Oxfam’s Farm Bill Action Team and help pressure Congress to support hardworking farmers around the world.
We need you to make sure this year’s Farm Bill lets small farmers compete and make a living. The last bill included billions of dollars in handouts for gigantic farming operations – while leaving family farmers across the globe struggling to make ends meet.
This is one of those touchstone issues where your actions can have a huge impact. Rural communities are devastated when small farmers lose their livelihoods. The results: Poverty and hunger skyrocket, the young move to cities, and unsustainable farming practices deplete the land.
As part of the Oxfam Farm Bill Action Team, you’ll be given easy ways to educate your friends, Congress, and the media about how our tax dollars shouldn’t go toward subsidies that hurt family farms both in the US and in poor countries.
Help us cultivate change to make our world a better place. Join the Farm Bill Action Team today!
Last week, over 70,000 ONE members sent over 200,000 letters to Congress, urging our government to save nearly a billion dollars for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria programs.
Today, Archbishop Desmund Tutu, one of the most remarkable leaders of our time, asks Congress to fund the fight and “remind the world of the good that can be done in the name of the American people.”
From Desmond Tutu’s Op-Ed in today’s Washington Post:
“The U.S. government has repeatedly promised to combat HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria: At the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 and as a member of the Group of Eight the United States committed to the goal of universal access for HIV-AIDS prevention and treatment by 2010. However, the funding resolution Congress is considering would shortchange and potentially sabotage every American program to address these diseases, leaving innocent people in its wake…
“It is a sign of our breakdown as one human family. Worldwide, we have made stops and starts at healing this rift and keeping our promises to one another. But if Congress does not act to restore that $1 billion for global health, poverty alleviation and foreign aid, the rift will only grow wider and healing will be further beyond our reach…
“As we honor the life and vision of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. today, I hope and pray that Congress will choose the righteous path, the path that will save tens of thousands of lives and give countless children opportunities and hope they have never before imagined. I join the world in watching, and waiting for its decision.”
Read the full piece here.
Since leaders in Congress first announced their intention to extend the continuing resolution, which would keep federal funding for 2007 at 2006 levels, ONE has mobilized an effort to save the nearly 1 billion dollars for the fight against extreme poverty, HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis that would be lost.
This week, ONE members encouraged their representatives to sign “Dear Colleague” letters asking congressional leadership to give as much money back to these critical programs as possible. Now that the official deadlines for getting signatures have passed, you can see the final list of those who decided to join the effort below.
We’ll have to wait, possibly until February 15 (when the current continuing resolution expires), until we find out how much of the billion dollars is saved, but thanks to your letters, emails, faxes and calls, our representatives heard not just that Americans care about global poverty, but that Americans are paying close attention to what they do with this critical funding.
Signers of the Brownback/Durbin “Dear Colleague” letter in the Senate:
Leahy (D-VT), Specter (R-PA), Biden (D-DE), Levin (D-MI), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Feingold (D-WI), Stabenow (D-MI), Murray (D-WA), Menendez (D-NJ), Coleman (R-MN), Sununu (R-NH), Kennedy (D-MA), Clinton (D-NY), Akaka (D-HI), Kerry (D-MA), Obama (D-IL), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Mikulski (D-MD), Feinstein (D-CA), Dodd (D-CT), Lincoln (D-AR), Brown (D-OH), Bingaman (D-NM), Murkowski (D-AK), Lieberman (I-CT), Harkin (D-IA), Boxer (D-CA), Salazar (D-CO), Wyden (D-OR), Collins (R-ME), Dole (R-NC), Schumer (D-NY), Inouye (D-HI), Hagel (R-NE), Burr (R-NC), Cardin (D-MD), Landrieu (D-LA), Smith (R-OR), Whitehouse (D-RI), Martinez (R-FL)
Signers of the Lee/Shays “Dear Colleague” letter in the House:
Lantos (D-CA), Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), McDermott (D-WA), McCotter (R-MI), Payne (D-NJ), Carter (R-TX), C. Brown (D-FL), Cummings (D-MD), Baldwin (D-WI), Christensen (D-VI), Michaud (D-ME), Jefferson (D-LA), Doggett (D-TX), Millender-McDonald (D-CA), Fattah (D-PA), Jackson Lee (D-TX), Holt (D-NJ), Larsen (D-WA), A. Green (D-TX), Waxman (D-CA), Wexler (D-FL), Waters (D-CA), Meek (D-FL), Kucinich (D-OH), John Lewis (D-GA), Conyers (D-MI), S. Davis (D-CA), Carson (D-IN), Allen (D-ME), McGovern (D-MA), G. Moore (D-WI), Cleaver (D-MO), Carnahan (D-MO), Capuano (D-MA), Tauscher (D-CA), Clay (D-MO), Wynn (D-MD), Crowley (D-NY), Watt (D-NC), Blumenauer (D-OR), Pastor (D-AZ), Nadler (D-NY), Van Hollen (D-MD), Matsui (D-CA), R. Scott (D-VA), Dicks (D-WA), Schakowsky (D-IL), Bordallo (D-GU), Berman (D-CA), Grijalva (D-AZ), Eshoo (D-CA), Capps (D-CA), G. Green (D-TX), Lofgren (D-CA), Tierney (D-MA), Markey (D-MA), A. Hastings (D-FL), B. Thompson (D-MS), Rangel (D-NY), Hinchey (D-NY), Honda (D-CA), Boucher (D-VA), E.B. Johnson (D-TX), Woolsey (D-CA), Inslee (D-WA), Hare (D-IL), George Miller (D-CA), Butterfield (D-NC), DeGette (D-CO), Pallone (D-NJ), McNulty (D-NY), Rush (D-IL), D. Davis (D-IL), Linda Sanchez (D-CA), Gutierrez (D-IL), R. Brady (D-PA), Maloney (D-NY), McCarthy (D-NY), Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), Sires (D-NJ), Ruppersberger (D-MD), Solis (D-CA), James Moran (D-VA), Dingell (D-MI), McNerney (D-CA), Rothman (D-NJ), Pascrell (D-NJ), Cohen (D-TN), Snyder (D-AR), Stark (D-CA)
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Yesterday, Denver was named the site of the 2008 Democratic National Convention, making this major Colorado city a center piece for the 2008 presidential election.
Our very own Anne Batchelder sprung into action, quickly inviting all of our members from in and around the city to attend a ONE Campaign training in Denver. Since her 4 PM Email, 345 coloradans have already RSVPed.
If you’ll be in Denver on March 10, sign up for the training.
Says Anne:
“I’ll teach you more about the ONE Campaign and what it takes to bring the fight against global poverty to your community, to your elected officials, and to candidates. It’ll also be a great chance to meet other ONE volunteers from all over Colorado.”
